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Emotional Transfer in Human–Horse Interaction: New Perspectives on Equine Assisted Interventions

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Emotional Transfer in Human–Horse Interaction: New Perspectives on Equine Assisted Interventions animals Review Emotional Transfer in Human–Horse Interaction: New Perspectives on Equine Assisted Interventions Chiara Scopa 1,*, Laura Contalbrigo 1 , Alberto Greco 2,3 , Antonio Lanatà 2,3 , Enzo Pasquale Scilingo 2,3 and Paolo Baragli 4,5 1 Italian National Reference Centre for Animal Assisted Interventions, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, 35020 Legnaro (Padua), Italy; [email protected] 2 Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy; [email protected] (A.G.); [email protected] (A.L.); [email protected] (E.P.S.) 3 Feel-Ing s.r.l., 56122 Pisa, Italy 4 Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Pisa, 56124 Pisa, Italy; [email protected] 5 Bioengineering and Robotic Research Center “E. Piaggio”, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 22 October 2019; Accepted: 22 November 2019; Published: 26 November 2019 Simple Summary: Equine assisted interventions (EAIs) represent an emerging field of animal assisted interventions (AAIs), employing horses in a wide variety of activities with humans. Based on the socio-emotional competences of this species, which evolved sophisticated communicative skills to interrelate with humans, we here hypothesized the occurrence of an interspecific emotional transfer during interventions. The emotional transfer hypothesis suggests a mutual coordination of emotional states of humans and horses, which are going through a coupling process during the interaction. Even though this mechanism is supported by few existing studies on human-horse emotional fine-tuning, it could play a key role in EAIs. We moreover propose to measure this coordination through monitoring physiological variables with a novel multidisciplinary method. In the future, having an insight on emotional states of animals involved in AAIs could be useful to ameliorate the wellbeing of both animal and human subjects and to better standardize operational strategies. Abstract: Equine assisted interventions (EAIs) include all therapeutic interventions aimed at improving human wellbeing through the involvement of horses. Due to the prominent emotional involvement traditionally characterizing their relation with humans, horses developed sophisticated communicative skills, which fostered their ability to respond to human emotional states. In this review, we hypothesize that the proximate causation of successful interventions could be human–animal mutual coordination, through which the subjects bodily and, most importantly, emotionally come into contact. We propose that detecting emotions of other individuals and developing the capacity to fine-tune one’s own emotional states accordingly (emotional transfer mechanism), could represent the key engine triggering the positive effects of EAIs. We provide a comprehensive analysis of horses’ socio-emotional competences according to recent literature and we propose a multidisciplinary approach to investigate this inter-specific match. By considering human and horse as a unique coupling system during the interaction, it would be possible to objectively measure the degree of coordination through the analysis of physiological variables of both human and animal. Merging the state of art on human–horse relationship with the application of novel methodologies, could help to improve standardized protocols for animal assisted interventions, with particular regard to the emotional states of subjects involved. Keywords: human–horse interaction; animal assisted interventions; equine assisted interventions; horse; Equus caballus; emotional transfer; emotional intelligence; physiological signals; non-linear dynamic models Animals 2019, 9, 1030; doi:10.3390/ani9121030 www.mdpi.com/journal/animals Animals 2019, 9, 1030 2 of 21 1. Introduction Levinson [1] in his book Pet-Oriented Science Psychotherapy mentioned several examples of how animals could help in enhancing therapies with children. Levinson’s statement has been mentioned many times to implement the use of animals in therapeutic interventions and since the 1960s, this practice has become increasingly popular. Nowadays, animal assisted interventions (AAIs) are goal-oriented and structured interventions that intentionally include or incorporate animals in health, education, and human services (e.g., social work) for the purpose of therapeutic, educational, or recreational gains in humans [2]. According to the aim of the intervention, they are usually classified in animal assisted therapy (AAT), animal assisted education (AAE) and animal assisted activity (AAA), and they are structured and managed by a multidisciplinary team [3]. In this huge framework, equine assisted interventions (EAIs) are an emerging field, recently nominated as a very popular and novel practice [4]. EAIs is an umbrella term that includes a wide diversity of methodologies and approaches to improve human wellbeing through the involvement of horses (Equine assisted therapy—EAT; equine assisted education—EAE; equine assisted activity—EAA). EAIs can be adapted to the needs of the patient/beneficiary involved in a wide range of settings [5] and, for this reason, they are used in many institutions worldwide. In particular, equine assisted therapies (EATs) are often integrated in traditional therapeutic plans for individuals with mental and physical disabilities [6–8]. Even though their efficacy has not been completely proved yet, some authors claim social, emotional, physical, and educational benefits for several categories of patients experiencing therapy with horses [9–14]. For instance, EAIs seem to stimulate multiple domains of functioning handling emotional, cognitive, motor, and social disabilities with or without actual riding activity [15]. Kendall et al. [16] listed some anecdotal and descriptive hypotheses about how horses lead to positive psychological effects in patients during equine assisted therapy (EAT). Among these hypotheses, it has been suggested that EAT provides an emotional positive context that increases the prospect of beneficial changes in patients. For example, individuals with physical disability may experience a sense of “normality” while riding in contrast with the physical limitations they are used to face in everyday life [17]. In addition, therapeutic equine interventions are conceived to address self-esteem and personal confidence, communicative skills, and social trust, by literally making the horse a therapeutic tool [18]. By using unintentional signals (such as vocalizations or facial expressions, but also by seeking affiliative contact), humans and horses progressively sharpened the skills to communicate reciprocal affective states. The bonding process connecting humans with animals starts with physical contact. Information collected through the body are mainly used to anticipate the movements of the partner (both horse and human) [19]; however, body contact constitutes an emotional connecting channel between interactants as well [20,21], resulting in tangible behavioral and physiological variation. Therefore, human relationship with horses has been prompted by the emotional involvement consistently characterizing their interaction. The occurrence of repeated encounters in the long term is in fact useful for both motor coordination and socio-emotional engagement between the bonding subjects [19,22]. For this reason, most of the interventions imply physical interaction with animals. The lack of a rigorous scientific approach in the study of these interventions results today as the main obstacle for the development of standardized methods in the field [23]. Here, we identify two main parallel branches in EAIs’ context both grounded on the same idiosyncratic process, i.e., the occurrence of coordination—sensu lato—between the interactants. A mutual interaction may in fact result in (I) a motor coordination dynamic or (II) in the coupling of physiological activities (brain/heart/hormonal) of both human and horse [24,25]. In the first case, the movement of the horse’s pelvis during horseback riding provides motor and sensory inputs to the human body producing normalized pelvic movement in the rider, closely resembling ambulation in individuals without disabilities [26,27]. Eventually, Animals 2019, 9, 1030 3 of 21 the rider’s motion becomes phase-matched with that of the horse, developing in a synchronized gait [28,29]. As for the second case mentioned, investigating horse-human interaction by simultaneously recording their physiological activities (such as heart rate or hormones levels) has been widely employed in the last decades, even though studies mostly focused on equitation disciplines or training [30,31]. Inter-subjects coordination is positively affected by the affiliative nature of the encounter since social interaction and the processing of affective information are suggested to facilitate the mechanism of embodiment (i.e., when body postures and facial expressions arising during social interaction play central roles in social information processing, [32]) [33]. Since direct human–horse relationship may significantly influence the emotional arousal of both individuals, consequently affecting their behaviors, physiological variables have been gradually incorporated in this field of study as easily accessible sources to evaluate the stress level or emotional condition of both humans and animals [34]. Moreover, it has been recently demonstrated that horse’s physiological activities overlap with the human’ ones, as long as the interaction occurs
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